An Ideal Husband

Act I

The octagon room at Sir Robert Chiltern’s house in Grosvenor Square.

The room is brilliantly lighted and full of guests. At the top of the staircase stands Lady Chiltern, a woman of grave Greek beauty, about twenty-seven years of age. She receives the guests as they come up. Over the well of the staircase hangs a great chandelier with wax lights, which illumine a large eighteenth-century French tapestry⁠—representing the Triumph of Love, from a design by Boucher⁠—that is stretched on the staircase wall. On the right is the entrance to the music room. The sound of a string quartet is faintly heard. The entrance on the left leads to other reception rooms. Mrs. Marchmont and Lady Basildon, two very pretty women, are seated together on a Louis Seize sofa. They are types of exquisite fragility. Their affectation of manner has a delicate charm. Watteau would have loved to paint them.

Mrs. Marchmont

Going on to the Hartlocks’ tonight, Margaret?

Lady Basildon

I suppose so. Are you?

Mrs. Marchmont

Yes. Horribly tedious parties they give, don’t they?

Lady Basildon

Horribly tedious! Never know why I go. Never know why I go anywhere.

Mrs. Marchmont

I come here to be educated.

Lady Basildon

Ah! I hate being educated!

Mrs. Marchmont

So do I. It puts one almost on a level with the commercial classes, doesn’t it? But dear Gertrude Chiltern is always telling me that I should have some serious purpose in life. So I come here to try to find one.

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